22 comments:

Witz78
said...

Great news. Glad common sense prevailed and the sport can move forward quickly now.Davis is ideal players rep on the board for a number of reasons.December 2009 - snooker finally enters the 21st century!

Reading this reminds me of the famous clip of Barry Hearn rushing out and grabbing Davis at The Crucible after he won his first World title! What a clip and now the two of them working again so closely, running the game, full circle eh?! Can still see the clip of Hearn raisng his fist in the air in pure jubilation, hold on, maybe that was Tuesday?!

A lot of concern about who would be co-opted so Lee Doyle and Hamish McInnes can take a good deal of credit for the selections. Really, really exciting times lay ahead for snooker under Barry Hearn in my view.

Exciting times ahead. I believe snooker has huge growth potential at present, especially in the establishment of a world tour. Ireland, Germany and Brazil are crying out for a major. I would like to see the ranking system amended whereby placings are updated immediately after each event, as is customary in tennis. Draws could be made using the most recent, or provisional rankings and if, by the time the event starts,the seedings are a couple of tournaments behind the rankings, then so be it. its preferable to the current set up where seedings are anything up to a year behind.I would also like to see, as Clive has been advocating, a secondary tour with a reduced ranking tariff. and not necessarily an insignificant tariff. maybe a third or a quarter of current levels. These could be open to all players and the likes of O sullivan, Higgins and co. could choose whether to enter or not but it would provide an opportunity for class to come through. At present if a player has a couple of bad tournaments it can be 4 or 5 months without the chance to regain confidence, thereby leading to further losses. Ken doherty last year and Judd trump now are cases in point. There is also scope for a seniors tour to run concurrently with major rankers, with only former tour players over 50 being allowed, with matches over best of 5 played as a warm up to the main event. It could only be good to have all the 80,s stars knocking about at the venue. other variants worthy of consideration are a team championship, either naional or mosconi style pitting europe against asia. While not being pure snooker it could harvest an entire new crop of fans.Hopefully hearn will deliver. One thing is for sure. If he cant, its unlikely that anybody can and the snooker community, like the worlds economy, will rebase itself in the orient.

Mr Hearn is a very shrewd merchant and showed a touch of genius with his time clock idea to waken up both players and the viewers. The viewers are the most important people to pro’ snooker, as that is the sponsors’ ONLY purpose; to attract customers; Not to promote snooker.

The slow dilatory way of playing, and still being taught to youngsters, will definitely be barred from TV screens. There are many ways to replace it to keep the customers alert and Barry has probable thought of them all.

Barry’s main challenge is to be the first WPBSA Chairman to balance the books and maybe later show a profit margin. Mr hey you

PS Please give a big kiss Dave, and a kiss and a cuddle to both the fellow posts that gave me a mention during these troubled times. DM

Incredible. I post from mr hey you that actually very nearly makes sense. Shame about the P.S at the bottom. Come on mr hey you please get back to your original style, it's rubbish when you actually speak a bit of sense.

Looking forward to my now annual visit to the TIC. Going to watch I think Maguire and then Selby I think. Mark King was running a competition on Twitter, you had to suggest a new nickname for him as he was bored with 'Royal' and I suggested one and he never seem to come online again, be interesting to see if he has a new one. Despite no freebie, I should still be able to get in for just a fiver as long as they dont make me pay a booking fee on the day. My tip for title is Selby. I know people will say he is not in form, but does form matter so much in a sport where the events are so spaced out. He is a man suited in my opinion to the longer frame format and people say he had a bad season last year, but it wasn't so bad it was just he played his best stuff in invitation events mainly. Also he is too good not to feature again at the business end of events. As for the other main contenders I think Murphy could go close again, but it has been a while since anyone retained a ranking event. As for Ronnie I hope, but he has a tough opener and the long potting is still a worry and I think he is being genuine when he says he has worries with his game. Ding was almost my pick, but I was disappointed with his final display in the Grand Prix, but I would put him down for a title later in the season. Maguire may be too emotional for this one, but likewise that could galvanise him. Robertson played well at the Grand Prix and I think his game is ready for the longer format now, a place in the final would not surprise me. A couple of outsiders to put out there are Stevens and also Ebdon who has a fascinating opener against Trump, but I think he will grind him down and then Ebdon may get into his groove after that. One other thing! Clive is not listed in the Radio Times, the other six are and I can't really see them having seven. If he is not used at the Crucible then effectively the Everton era is over with the beeb anyway, which is a great shame.

I’d like to thank Lee Doyle and Hamish McInnes for choosing the easy and morally correct option by co-opting Barry Hearn onto the board.

By doing so, they have maintained the reputation of the sport and have shown that they are willing to put their personal reservations aside and abide by the democratic wishes of the players. Good on them.

I shared Dave’s view that a politically neutral player would be my choice as the players’ representative on the board, but also said that Steve Davis would be an excellent candidate under different circumstances.

However, now he’s been appointed I’d like to also wish him well in the role. I know he’s obviously close friends with Hearn, but he now needs to be the eyes and ears of the players as well, and I’m sure he’ll take this seriously. I’ve chatted to Steve and like him as a bloke. I think this appointment will work out.

Right, let the fun begin. I think we’ll notice some changes quite quickly, but I’d urge everyone to exercise a little patience with Mr Hearn and not to expect miracles overnight.

I’d also like to welcome all new readers to our website- traffic has increased considerably over the last few days.

I think our new master Barry knows that snooker is almost as dead as billiards, though old “Foggies” like Clive and many are hopping for a resurrection. For the record Dave: A copyright cant eat you out of house and home. May the balls run kindly Dave. Mr hey you

I can't describe how great I feel that - finally - the players have stood up and said "no more". It's a day I have hoped for for a long time and sometimes thought might never happen.It has been so hard to watch snooker being slowly strangled by people who, with individual exceptions, were on the board for what they could get for themselves rather than having the best interests of the game at heart.Thank you John Higgins, Barry Hearn, Steve Davis and others who have given everyone an alternative they can at last believe in. Please don't let this be a false dawn.